Last week in this space I said that a message that for many years spiritual teachers have been sharing—that “you are creating your own reality”—can be a dangerous teaching if it is not fully explained. I also said that there are two things you must know about the “you create your own reality” teaching:

(1) First, it must be explained (as we have done several times here now) that you are not “creating” anything, but merely noticing or remembering its existence, then, by focusing on it, calling it forth as a “manifestation” from the Field of Infinite Possibilities that is the Always Now/Always Here of things. What you are creating is your Interior Reality of these manifestations. It is in this sense that the statement “You are creating your own Reality” is true.

(2) Second, you must understand that even what we call the act of “creating” the Exterior Events of our lives is not something that anyone is doing alone. No Exterior Event in Physicality is created by any single individual. Such a thing is impossible.

I went into depth on Point #1 last week. Today, let’ s move forward with this discussion.

Point Number 2:

Okay, so once more, for good measure: Everything in your exterior world is being “co-created.” That is, it is being manifested (or seen, noticed, and remembered) not only by you, but by the lot of us; by everyone.

This is true because There Is Only One Of Us. Or, as Conversations with God says, “All things are One Thing. There is Only One Thing, and all things are part of The One Thing There Is.”

It is this “One Thing” that is doing everything. Nothing that is occurring can occur without the participation and the concurrence of The One Thing. By definition, such an event would be impossible.

Life…exactly as it is happening here and everywhere in the Universe…is the expression of The One Thing That Is. In my vocabulary, The One Thing That Is called “God.” Everything that you, as an individual, appear to be doing is actually being done co-jointly, with the participation and the collaboration and the collusion of The One Thing.

I like this little metaphor: Imagine that you are your little finger. Now when you move, who is doing the moving? Is it you, as a finger, or is it your body, as that of which you, a finger, are a part?

Ah, you might say, it is your brain! Your brain sends a signal to your finger, via the pathway of your nerves, and your finger responds to the impulse; it plays out, in action, your brain’s prior thought. The time lapse between Thought and Action may be infinitesimal, but there is a time lapse. The thought comes first. Then comes the passage of the neural impulse through the network of nerves that serves your body. Then comes the movement of your finger.

So, your whole body is involved in the moving of your little finger. You couldn’t so much as lift a finger without your Body and your Mind.

Well, my friend, you and I are part of The Body Of God. We are like tiny little cells…like sub molecular particles…in The Body of God. Now if we are not careful, when we do somethingwe’ll think we are doing it all by ourselves. Of course, such a thing is impossible. Our action is merely a manifestation of the Will of God.

We can do nothing—nothing—against God’s Will. The arrogance of imagining that we can is the greatest folly of the Human Mind.

We see, then, that all manifestations of our exterior reality—what we might call the physical world around us—are collaborative. They are the products of the joint creation of every human being, at some level or another, and of God.

I have come to understand that the amount of energy expended by any Individuation of the Divine on any physical manifestation is directly proportional to the degree to which that Individuation is impacted or affected by the manifestation Itself.

In other words, the more a person is impacted by a manifestation, the larger was that person’s collaborative role in co-creating it.

Thus, a person in Hong Kong likely had less to do, energetically, with the traffic jam in which you find yourself in Los Angeles than, say, another person in Los Angeles—to say nothing of the person seven cars ahead of you whose vehicle breakdown caused the traffic jam in the first place.

On the other hand, if the person in Hong Kong was anxiously waiting in her Executive Conference Room for a Skype call from you to exchange timed-to-the-minute details of a business transaction that her company and yours were on the verge of completing, and if she needed this information instantly in order for this deal to go through, and if she needed this deal to go through in order for her to get a long-sought-after promotion…AND…if she feelsunworthy of receiving the promotion and being invited to join the company’s top brass, her Energy of Unworthiness might very well have played a role in causing the man seven cars ahead of you to have his car break down, thus snagging you in a traffic jam that makes it impossible for you to get to your Skype call and send that vitally needed data to China.

Thus do the dominoes in life fall. Thus is it true that at some level every living entity co-jointly creates every manifestation of physical life. Or as some contemporary physicists have put it, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Singapore, the current of the wind is affected in San Francisco.

Why bother going into this so deeply here, over and over again in this narrative? Because it is as I said last week: The idea that “you are creating your own reality” can be dangerous if not fully explained.

People who have been told this and have taken it to heart, without deeply understanding the teaching, could easily find themselves depressed, wondering why they would have “created” certain things for themselves or others. Their own molestation at age seven, for instance. Or their grandmother’s death in an auto accident. Or the end of their marriage. Or, on a larger scale, a revolt in Libya, an earthquake in Japan, or a global financial meltdown.

Why do I keep creating these things!?, they may ask themselves in frustration, taking full responsibility for all exterior manifestations. They may even make themselves so “wrong” for what is occurring or has occurred in their life—or in the life of the planet—that they develop deep self-doubt, self- blaming, or even self-loathing. Then, eventually, life-loathing.

So it is very, very important for spiritual teachers to emphasize the now-little-known details of what is meant by “you create your own reality.” It is imperative that everyone be told that all manifestations of our exterior reality—what we might call the physical world around us, as well as our own personal physical experiences—are collaborative, and we thus have only a proportionate degree of personal control over the Collective Consciousness that produced them. These are the products of the joint creation of every human being, and more broadly, they are the expressions of Life, and thus, of God.

Let me make this more clear with a rhetorical question: If God did not want something to happen, could it happen? No. Nothing happens outside the Will of God. Therefore if a thing is happening, you can be sure that it is happening because it is God’s will for it to happen. The question is not whether it is God’s Will…but why?

Why would it be God’s Will for hurricanes and tornadoes to occur? Why would it be God’s Will for anger and violence and pestilence and suffering and struggle and starvation to be part of the human condition? How could any of this be God’s Will?

I will respond to that question in the form of my answer in this week’s Mailbox inquiry. See the story below…

Hugs and love,

Neale

Why am I creating this?

Dear Neale…Some terrible things have happened and are happening on the earth—and some not very nice things have happened in my life. My question is this: Why am I creating this? If I am the creator of my own reality, producing the events of my own life, why am I doing this? This is important to me, so thanks for answering. Michael in North Carolina.

Neale Responds: Dear New Friend…The first thing I want to say to you, Michael, is that you did not create the Exterior Events of your life all by yourself. Everything that is happening in our Exterior Experience is a co-creation, put together by the lot of us. That is, by everyone.

This is true because There Is Only One Of Us. Or, as Conversations with God says, “All things are One Thing. There is Only One Thing, and all things are part of The One Thing There Is.”

We see, then, that all manifestations of our exterior reality—what we might call the physical world around us, as well as our own personal physical experiences—are collaborative. They are the products of the joint creation of every human being, at some level. More broadly, they are the expressions of Life, and thus, of God.

Now, Michael, yours is a fair question, a profound question, and an urgent question if we are to believe in a loving, caring, compassionate God; if we are to believe in a God That Makes Sense.

The answer to that question cannot be put into one paragraph, but let me try to bring it to you as succinctly as possible. God wants nothing for Itself, or for any of the Parts of Itself (that means you and me), that is not for the benefit of any Part, or of the Whole. We can assume, therefore, as a matter of faith, that whatever is occurring is offering benefit.

Very often in Life it is not easy, or even possible, for us to see what the benefit is, because it is always for the benefit of the Totality of You—the three-part being that we call Body, Mind, and Soul—and that sometimes can look like something that does not benefit one or two of those parts.

In such a situation those parts of you are being used as devices…almost as shock absorbers are used on a car to allow the whole vehicle to get where it’s going smoothly and easily, even though the road it is traveling is rough. So, something that does not look like it is so good for the Body, for instance, could very well be good for the Totality of You; for the Whole Being that you are is on a journey, and sometimes the road is rough.

These three aspects of your Holy Being are tools; nothing more than pieces of equipment used by the Totality of You to move you into the experiencing of an aspect or aspects of your Divinity. These aspects could include Wisdom, Clarity, Compassion, Understanding, Mastery, Wholeness, Perfection, Patience, Generosity, Creativity, Caring, Forgiveness, and Love—to name but a tiny few of the countless characteristics of Divinity.

If the Totality of You wished to experience, shall we say, that aspect of Divinity called Divine Patience, it would have to call to itself people, places, or conditions that might not seem so perfect to the Body or the Mind, but that would be understood by the Soul to be absolutelyperfect for the Totality of You to express that Aspect of Divinity that It wishes to express—thus to define itself as that.

Remember, Conversations with God says, “every act is an act of self- definition.” All we are doing here is defining ourselves. We are deciding who we are, announcing that to ourselves and others, and then demonstrating that.

This is all that Buddha did. This is all that Moses did. This is all that Jesus did. This is all that Muhammad did. This is all that Mother Theresa did, all that Joan of Arc did, all that any person who has self-realized (and thus changed the world) has ever done. This is what Paramahansa Yogananda did, and then he went on to create the Self Realization Fellowship.

This is what I am doing and this is what you are doing. The path is not always easy for the Body and the Mind. There are sometimes shocks to absorb. Especially on what author M. Scott Peck described as The Road Less Traveled. And yours is that road, Michael.

The answer to your question, Michael, is no, you did not “create this” all by yourself. Yours is a co-creation, with God, with Life, and with all others in Life. Including me. I co-created this with you, so that I would have you to answer this question for, in order that many, many others may benefit from the knowing of this.

Your life, Michael, will be shown to you to be a gift to others when you see it from the vantage point of our Soul, which knows all, which understands all, and which blesses all—even that which the Body and the Mind do not enjoy or fathom.

This is what your Soul now wishes you to hear, to fully comprehend, and to gently embrace. For the embracing of your Soul’s wisdom and its vision will allow you to create a new Reality around what is now occurring in your life, whether or not the Exterior Events of your life change in any way.

To learn more about how to use your Mind and your Soul co-jointly to create a new Interior Reality about the Exterior Events in your life, I encourage you to read When Everything Changes, Change Everything and the latest book sharing the CWG messages, The Only Thing That Matters. The first book will tell you, quite specifically, how to use the Mechanics of the Mind to access the System of the Soul, thus to harness at last the creative power of the Totality of You. The second will make it very clear to you how you can focus the rest of your life in a way that brings you peace and joy.